When I was in Vancouver doing some work in the early 90s, a woman was telling me that her dad was a pilot for Air Canada. They were required to keep somebody on board to speak French to controllers when the flights were into Quebec. What was outrageous was that EVEN FRANCE talks to pilots in English. The only place in the world where airliners flew (at least in terms of international airports, and the places her dad flew into Quebec qualified as "international") that had this special requirement was Quebec.

Most Canadians west of Ontario seem to absolutely hate Quebec with a passion, and mostly over this sort of stupidity.

I knew a salesman who had an interesting story about getting lost in Quebec; they asked some local for directions, and the local Quebecois played stupid, "no parlez vous Englais" - but when he lamented he was willing to pay for directions, the guy immediately spit out the directions, in perfect English. He tore off without paying the guy, because, as he said to the guy as he was leaving, "I said I was willing to pay for the information, until I found out you were playing games with me"

Magic_Button:..so I don't know much about Quebec, except that it's a part of Canada, which I have always thought of as a primarily English-speaking country. Reading this article, I'm amused that there is such a thing as a "language minister" and a "language office" or department or whatever...I mean, seriously? When it comes to government waste, I can hardly think of anything more potentially wasteful that whatever a "language department" does.

Office of Religion ?

A federal office that has no powers

A Committee that has never met or decided anything

I our defense they have to use offices and committees to waste money rather than having every politician add their own spending bump to every bill that crosses the floor.

In the absence of a big corrupt American system we try our best to waste money like any good government does.